Mangools vs Ahrefs: How Do These Two SEO Tools Compare?

If you’ve spent any time at all in SEO circles, I guarantee that you’ve seen, and probably even used, Ahrefs. Mangools is also a relatively common name, but it’s not quite the same household level.

Putting them head-to-head might seem like an unfair comparison, but is it really? After all, everyone has to start somewhere, and Mangools is no slouch.

How do these two stack up, and which one is the one you should use?

What is Ahrefs?

When it comes to SEO, link analysis is hugely important. Ahrefs is a brand literally named after the HTML tag for a link. Clearly, there’s a connection here.

Ahrefs is the 800-pound gorilla of the link analysis world. It’s one of the largest and most comprehensive link analysis tools on the web. It’s also run by extremely knowledgeable people and has one of the most useful SEO blogs you’ll find anywhere online.

What do they offer?

• A comprehensive site explorer with information about your domain, ranging from your overall Domain Ranking, to the number of backlinks and ranking keywords you have, to your traffic trends over time, to geographic and even competitor data.
• A site auditor that shows you a wide range of vital stats, including the ability to analyze every page and look for errors or SEO issues.
• A keyword explorer that allows you to analyze and identify potential keywords you can use for new content and see how your current keywords stack up.
• A content explorer that helps you see what already exists for a given topic, how it’s performing, and how you might be able to find a gap in the search results to capitalize on.
• A rank tracker to show you where you’re ranking for the keywords they can track, what share of the overall traffic you’re getting, and other vital stats.

All of this is powered by what is quite possibly one of the largest SEO-focused internet indexes on the web. It’s over ten years old and processes literal petabytes of data daily, which is more than pretty much anyone but Google, Microsoft, and a couple of other big players. This makes their information the most accurate and reliable out of pretty much any tool that maintains an index.

What is Mangools?

Mangools is a large and useful SEO suite that offers a range of premium tools and a handful of free tools as well. They don’t have the same kind of massive internet-spanning index that Ahrefs does, but the data they access is still very good.

Their premium tools include:

• A keyword finder that focuses primarily on long-tail keywords with robust keyword difficulty analysis, with the ability to search by domain and see their top keywords.
• A SERP checker that allows you to see the strengths and weaknesses of the sites ranking for keywords, and the strong points of sites in particular, so you can find ways to outrank them at their own game.
• A rank tracker that, while not as robust as Ahrefs, is streamlined to provide you with accurate, easy-to-read reports on a weekly basis.
• A fast and simple backlink analyzer that lets you check current backlinks, new backlinks, and even lost backlinks.
• A site analysis and auditor that gives you a quick and rough overview of your core SEO metrics, weak points, and actionable tips that can improve your overall performance.

They also have a handful of free tools, including a browser extension, a volatility checker for search results, a SERP simulator to see how your metadata will look, and a location changer to theorycraft how your SEO works in other regions.

So, how do these two platforms stack up against one another? Let’s look into the specifics.

Ahrefs vs. Mangools: Pricing

Some people want to see what a tool can do and decide if it’s worth it when they hear the price. Others prefer to see the price and then keep that information in mind as they go through features. You’ve seen the overview, so now let’s look at pricing. Before we get into the specifics, it’s easy to declare the winner: Mangools is very much a cheaper, entry-level-focused platform compared to the professional tool of Ahrefs.

Mangools has several plans with different limits and pricing.

• Entry, which is $30 per month. The limits for just about everything are in double digits for daily searches and usage caps.
• Basic, which is $50 per month. All of the limits are around 4x what they were in Entry for this plan.
• Premium, which is $70 per month. Limits are higher, with a few being unlimited.
• Agency, for $130 per month. Higher limits again, and this one comes with a few extra seats for team members, with the option to buy more.

In addition to the free tools, Mangools also has a very limited free plan that gives you five searches per day for no cost. And, of course, these are monthly prices; if you pay annually, you get a discount.

Ahrefs pricing is higher. They have three plans:

• Lite, for $129 per month. You can track five projects with six months of history and access their general tools with 500 credits per month per user.
• Standard, for $249 per month. 20 projects, two years of history, 600 credits, and a slate of more advanced tools across the board.
• Advanced, for $449 per month. 50 projects, half a decade of history, 750 credits, and access to every tool they offer.

A fourth plan is their agency/enterprise plan, which is customized to the company requesting it. It has the usual enterprise-grade features, like invoicing, API access, and auditing. Since Mangools doesn’t have anything comparable, I’m not really going to be using this one in my overall analysis since it doesn’t add things that 99% of users are going to care about.

Ahrefs also has free access to their Webmaster Tools suite, with limited access to site explorer and auditing and a free-forever account. It’s pretty limited, but it gives you a taste of what they offer.

Ahrefs vs. Mangools: Depth and Breadth

When you consider the array of features and data on offer from both of these tools, it’s pretty clear that Ahrefs has the upper hand. They’ve been at it longer, they have a larger index, they have a lot more advanced data and many more features.

Mangools, by contrast, keeps things simple. They may not have the most complex or robust tools, but that’s fine. It’s not their goal to have the most robust platform in the room. Instead, they’re firmly aimed at beginners, small businesses, and people who are still figuring out how to engage with this whole SEO thing.

In a way, you can make a comparison to other sorts of tools. Ahrefs is sort of like Photoshop: a massive industry-standard platform with cutting-edge features developed by a major brand. Mangools is more like Paint.net; something a step above the most basic (MS Paint) offerings, complex enough to give meaningful options, but not so deep and complex that you don’t know where to start when you load it up.

Ahrefs vs. Mangools: Design

Design is actually one area where Mangools probably comes ahead. Since they’re focused on beginners and they have a dedicated UX/UI designer on their team, they’ve put a lot of thought into making their platform eminently usable, logical, intuitive, and useful. It’s slick and smooth, too, so you never feel like you’re using something outdated or that just is due for an update.

Ahrefs isn’t bad by any means. It’s a lot more packed and detail-oriented, though. If you’re used to digging through Google’s Search Console or other SEO tools like Moz’s Site Explorer or Semrush, then you’ll be right at home with Ahrefs. They tend to expect a slightly higher level of engagement with learning where everything is and how it all works, though.

Ahrefs vs. Mangools: Data Accuracy

As mentioned above, Ahrefs has one of the biggest and best indexes available online. Very few other entities have access to as much as Ahrefs does.

Mangools, unfortunately, does not.

That’s not to say that Mangools’ data is bad. It’s not. It’s just less accurate, fuzzier, and with a broader margin of error than what Ahrefs provides. When you’re making specific data-driven decisions, especially when you’re working with high-end content where optimizations of tenths of a percent can be extremely important, Ahrefs is extremely useful. When you’re a smaller brand and where your decisions are more top-level and along the lines of picking keywords rather than analyzing nitpicks, Mangools is fine.

Ahrefs vs. Mangools: Secondary Sources

Ahrefs stands alone. Their data is first-party and very useful, but it’s limited in the sense that it’s just their data. If you pay for the ultra-premium version, you can get API access and export data however you like, but most people don’t do that. Ahrefs, meanwhile, isn’t forthcoming with integrations. Some other apps can access Ahrefs data from their own API access, and some let you if you have API access to grant them, but generally, when you’re using Ahrefs, that’s all you’re using.

Mangools actually has a potential edge here. You can actually bring in data from Majestic and Moz, two other high-end SEO tools, and integrate it seamlessly with the Mangools data. Putting all of that data in one place is very useful, though, of course, anyone using Ahrefs can easily get data from those other tools to use themselves in other ways.

Ahrefs vs. Mangools: Backlink Analysis

One of the most useful features of any SEO tool is backlink analysis. Since backlinks are so critically important for your growth, being able to monitor them is crucial. This is another area where Ahrefs’ index is useful. The more data you have on the current state of the internet, the more accurate the backlink profile will be.

Mangools isn’t bad by any means, but Ahrefs provides more depth and detail and often finds links that Mangools isn’t aware of.

When to Pick Mangools

Mangools is the ideal tool to choose if you’re on a budget and need decent analytics and SEO information, on a budget. There are a lot of budget tools out there, but most of them are either white-label versions of a few central tools, or they’re extremely limited. Mangools is one of the most robust platforms in its price bracket, and that makes it the ideal pick when you’re operating within that budget.

Mangools is also the better tool to pick if you’re looking for general data, but you don’t need hyper-precise, super-accurate data. Since their data sources aren’t as comprehensive as Ahrefs, you miss data points, comparisons aren’t always accurate, and there can be factors and realities that aren’t reflected accurately. It’s very much a “good enough” tool for most SMB purposes.

When to Pick Ahrefs

Ahrefs is the better tool when you need extremely accurate and specific data. And hey, for the price they’re charging, it better be. They’re very deep and robust, with tons of information everywhere you look. In fact, even experienced users find new data sources and information from time to time, and Ahrefs is always adding new developments, especially to their higher-tier plans.

When you’re making decisions based on specific data, that data needs to be as accurate as possible. Since Google isn’t forthcoming with that data directly, you need to go with the next best thing, and that’s Ahrefs, hands down. If you can afford it, it’s 100% worth using.

Alternative Options

Despite this post being primarily a comparison between two tools, I’m well aware that there are plenty of others out there. I have a whole list of free keyword research tools here, for example. So, if you have alternatives, feel free to discuss why you think they’re better than one, the other, or both of the options in this post.

I’d also recommend that you check out Topicfinder. It’s not analytics, but it does provide many of the more useful keyword research features from these other tools. If you need topic ideas, you’ve come to the right place. And if you have any questions about it, be sure to let me know! I’d be more than happy to help.

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